Giants rake in extra $317K for postseason wins

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Catcher Buster Posey was one of the key players who led the Giants to a World Series championship.

By winning the 2010 World Series, Giants players not only delivered a baseball championship to San Francisco for the first time, they also added a little extra coin to their pockets.

The Giants rocketed through the postseason, besting the Atlanta Braves, Philadelphia Phillies and the Texas Rangers to capture the World Series.

For their playoff excellence, members of the organization who received a full postseason share earned an extra $317,631, according to documents released Monday by Major League Baseball. The postseason share is bonus money awarded to the players on successful teams, and it comes from a portion of ticket revenue generated during the playoffs.

San Francisco divvied up 50 full-time shares between its organization. It also doled out 9.89 partial shares and two cash awards, according to MLB officials. Neither the Giants nor MLB would release the names of which members of the organization received full shares and which members received only partial ones.

Several key contributors to the team’s postseason success, including Buster Posey, Cody Ross and Pat Burrell, were absent from the team’s opening-day roster. Bengie Molina, who was traded from the Giants to the Rangers in midseason, could actually receive two postseason shares, because Texas was the team San Francisco defeated in the World Series.

For some Giants players, a full share would be a major salary boost; for others, it’s a mere drop in the bucket. Pablo Sandoval earned $465,000 this year, so a $317,631 bonus would be a 68 percent earnings increase. By contrast, Barry Zito, who earned $18.5 million this year, took home an average of $544,117 every time he pitched a game in 2010.

The major league minimum salary for this year’s 162-game regular season was $400,000. By winning the World Series, Giants players earned nearly 80 percent of that total for playing just 15 postseason games. For the regular season, the franchise had a payroll of $98.6 million, the ninth-highest in the majors.

A total of $54.9 million in revenue was dispensed to players from 12 different teams — all the squads that made the playoffs and four second-place teams that did not qualify for the postseason. By virtue of losing the World Series, Rangers players earned a full share of $246,280.

Field of green

Advancing through the postseason earned members of the Giants organization a six-figure bonus.

$317,631: Full postseason share for Giants employees50: Number of people in organization who received full share$400,000: Major league minimum player salary for this season$98.6 million: Giants’ total payroll this season